Want to design a Mars base for Nasa? Now's your chance

Would you like a 3D printer? Of course you would. Would you like to collaborate with Nasa? Please, we won't insult you while waiting for an answer. Makerbot has launched a competition tailored for you then, in collaboration with Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory: MakerBot Mars Base Challenge. It wants you to deliver inspiration for a human base on Mars, considering future visitors will have to combat extreme temperatures, radiation spikes, dust storms and the whole you-can't-breath-on-Mars thing. The brief provided is to design, with all these considerations in mind, "a utilitarian Mars base that can withstand the elements and maybe even make you feel at home, despite being 140 million miles away from Earth, on average".

And if you win, they'll give you a MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer.

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Of course not every entrant will have the astrophysics background required to tick all these environmentally challenged boxes, but Nasa is looking for anyone thinking outside of the box to provide another viewpoint, and possibly inspire the next generation of astronauts that will live in these abodes one day.

The competition opened on 30 May, and will close on 12 June, and already there have been 70 CAD file submissions on Thingiverse.

Pierre Meyitang, an engineering graduate "just trying to make things better through technology" has submitted the somewhat beautiful DasDome, a huge dome housing Mars-dwellers surrounded by solar panel arrays that can fold in on top of the dome to protect it from the elements. Ice from Mars is dropped into the stainless steel spheres that contain steam powered electric generators, to create energy for spinning turbines and heating up the colony. "All parts have dual purposes," he says.

Ryan from Florida says that with his base, you can "live in style while on the Red Planet". His green, black and red steampunk-style design proves this, but it's also engineered to be elevated off the ground for wind deflection, there's a pond in the city centre to store fresh water and homes are all located above agricultural plots -- "If you're stuck on Mars, at least you'll have a great view," he writes. Less inviting, but perhaps more practical, are Louis Fuentes' underground homes and Replicantnexus 7 makes the most of the ship astronauts use to reach the Red Planet, salvaging its solar panels and the air lock to engineer the first outpost on Mars.

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This is not the first time 3D printing has been associated with space living. The idea of 3D printing a home on Earth probably became popularised around the same time astrophysicists started talking about doing the same for the Moon. The European Space Agency's (ESA) has been working with architecture firm Foster +

Partners on a proposal for a 3D-printed moon base, and space architects Tomas Rousek, Katarina Eriksson and Ondrej Doule have been working with JPL scientists on something called SinterHab -- melting lunar dust to form a block that a spider-like robot can then use to build. Nasa is due to launch the first 3D printer into space this year, so experiments can begin on printing in the challenging conditions.